Monthly Archives: May 2009

When the mind boggles, there’s nothing like a touch of frivolity to put things into perspective.

After a bit of a pow-wow with Curly on chat and some soul searching, I have come to this analogy, if not conclusion.

Marriage is like haute couture. It probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, it’s damn hard to carry off but it sure as hell is pretty. Maybe, like couture, we aren’t supposed to do marriage at all, just aspire to it. Marriage is the ideal. Very few people can actually wear couture and not look stupid, so also with marriage. Sometimes, couture can mean a lot of painful things like being thin and holding your breath while walking. But it’s worth having around anyway, probably even worth fighting for.

So that’s settled and if I raise this topic again, just say Givenchy and I’ll remember to go read this.

In my last post, which admittedly was rather shallow on a lot of issues (but in my defense was in thinking-out-loud mode), I made a somewhat thoughtless remark on gay marriage. Actually, “thoughtless”, is the wrong word. It’s something I’ve grappled with for some time and never been able to come to figure out what I actually thought.

To be clear, I support the right of gay people to get legally married because a legal union opens the door to some legal benefits which are currently unfairly denied them. I also wish religious groups could bless gay unions simply because it would be nice.

But I’ve always been confused about why gay people would actually want to be married, apart from the legal advantage. Especially since from what I’m seeing in many countries these days, it’s not necessary to be married to claim rights as a partner.

My thinking was: you’ve already set yourself up in an alternative lifestyle to what society conventionally insists is the way to live, so why conform to other restricting social conventions?

However, Broom’s comment on my post yesterday began whirling around in my mind. Not because I began to question whether I had doubts about whether gay people are human beings. But because I began to rethink my questioning about why gay people would want to be married.

As Broom pointed out, they’ve been socialized like anyone else in the same society so obviously, they’d have the same hopes and dreams.

I realised it all stems from some kind of over-inflated expectation in my mind that by breaking free of one social restriction – that heterosexual union is the only way to be happy – they could break free from (hopefully) all others and herald a new egalitarian social order. Yup, the idealist in me on the rampage, basically. I actually harbour the wild hope that the dynamic of same sex relationships will offer a different model for relationships in general, that apart from the sexual aspect of the relationship, we will see emerging roles and routines that demonstrate that heterosexual marriage with all its patriarchal undertones is not the only way.

Certainly, some of this has already happened. When two women decide to commit to one another, there will be (I hope) none of the skewed expectations that persist in heterosexual marriage even if they are not practiced. For example, that the wife should be cooking, that a husband who does housework is some kind of paragon and the wife is “sooo lucky”. (I’m speaking from the Indian experience here. In Europe, I’m told, these expectations have long faded away, though somehow, the Europeans who date Asian women here happily fall back into the same pattern). Even in modern (Indian) marriages where husband and wife share the work easily, there is a subtext of gratitude one is supposed to feel to a helpful husband and guilt at not performing traditional wifely duties. Indian men who are modern enough to help out (and though the numbers are increasing, they are still a minority) do so in the smug belief that they “being good” and not just “being”. I’m sure in many relationships, there’s one partner who’s more lazy than the other but it’s doubly irritating to have laziness sponsored by tradition.

So, you see, my issue is with marriage itself. Rather ironic considering my pseudonym on this blog and the fact that I have chosen to get married. I see it as a kind of cop out. I chose it because it’s the easiest way if you love a man and you want some kind of security, not to mention social sanction. And, of course, 25 years of fairy stories have instilled in me the desire to walk down the aisle in a white dress with The One.

I had always hoped that gay people, who were moving away from heterosexual sexual mores, would move away from its more oppressive traditions and symbolism as well.

Now, I see this as naïve. Having been socialized in the same society as anyone else, gay people want the same things as the rest of us. They’ve had it hard enough breaking one big barrier, it’s kind of cheeky to expect them to do it all. Sigh – I guess if I want revolution in marriage, I’ll just have to start in my own backyard.

Again, a question that used to keep bothering me is – but what do gay people see in marriage? Noone is forcing them to get married, so why don’t they just chuck it? But, I think, the real issue for me is – if gay people, who I’ve always thought (but considering the previous paragraph is probably not the case) had a chance not to get married, and still did, then maybe there was something to marriage after all.

So what I’m really trying to ask gay people is “what do you see in marriage that’s worth keeping”? But why ask just gay people? This is a question that is relevant to society as a whole. So everyone… If:a) Parents would not die of shock if you decided to take up abode and share a bed with someone elseb) You didn’t believe in religionc) The legal benefits were equal to all “partnerships”… does marriage – in the sense of committing to one person for the rest of your life – make any sense at all?

And finally, since this is clearly worth a post, and not the three lines in brackets I gave it in the previous one, and is more to do with my conflicting views on marriage in general, I apologise for trivializing something so important.

Kind of interesting discussion with friend who was in town over the weekend. She was saying how even at 1, her son seems to want to copy his dad. So even though he occasionally picks up dolls, he’s already beginning to ignore his older sisters and identify more with his dad. Her daughters, on the other hand, tended to take naturally to the caring of baby-doll route.

Earlier in the week, I had been musing to V about whether bringing up our daughters with no fairy stories at all would free from the often fruitless search for The One and belief that happiness would somehow ensue from this quest. V said that he figured that regardless, some of these desires and fantasies are innate and not telling these stories wouldn’t help.

Our friend added when I raised the idea that even if we didn’t tell them, they would hear them somewhere else – probably at school and inevitably through books and movies as they grow older.

And I also realised that a big reason that novels and films which follow this quest for the One template are so successful is because they speak to something in us. They are successful because this is what we inherently want. This may explain why gay people also seem to want to get married (something I never quite understood because breaking away from heterosexual sexual norms seemed to be the ideal time to break with other heterosexual norms too). Or if inherently is too strong a word then maybe something that has been culturally conditioned for so many generations that it seems to have become part of our DNA.

Similarly with children taking to certain gender roles. Possibly it’s not innate and in fact, where parental roles do not stick to the mum-cooks dad-watches-TV norm, kids also grow up expecting differently. Nevertheless certain behaviours have been culturally reinforced for so long that they have become natural.

For example, how do boy puppies know they have to lift their legs and pee even though they didn’t grow up around mum and definitely dad? Certainly anomalies exist and these are to be indulged rather than condemned but, by and large, animals seem to instinctively follow the rules of their sex.

So does this hold for humans too? Are feminists fighting a losing battle?

Clearly someone somewhere must have articulated on this (yes, I have read the intro to The Second Sex if not the whole tome) so can anyone point me to relevant reading material?

As many people who know me know, Bridget Jones’s Diary is my bible. I can reread that book endlessly and if I’m blue, there’s nothing like Bridget, vodka, chips, chocolate, and cigarettes all at once to make me feel better.

Even though I’m not exactly similar to Bridget, I identify with the way she seems to be drifting on in a career where everyone is pretending to be intelligent, she thrives on popular culture, she’s obsessed with her weight and she smokes Silk Cuts (which I took to mainly because of her actually, when they were introduced in India, and thankfully I liked them).

But this rereading, especially of the sequel, has brought home to me that person I’m probably most like is Sharon. The obvious similarities are:a) Feminist ranting and ability to tell people off at partiesb) Tendency to over-dissect relationships sometimes to their detrimentc) Little more clued in than Bridgetd) Ability to understand the concept of Fuckwittage and use the word in its true sense.

However, still think V is Mr Darcy. When I met him, he was all put-together and charming in a slightly scary way. Even now he can be quite bossy. He’s the kind of person who would probably be considered “a catch”. Although he can be Daniel Cleaverish-flirty which is quite unfortunate for me. I think it’s because my relationship with him is so much like Bridget-Darcy… I’m often to be found staring at him while he’s asleep for example and thinking how perfect he is. And he’s always swooping to the rescue too.

One of the worst things about being married is losing control of the remote control. Recently, I’ve been having screaming fights with V, owing to my suspicion that his desire to randomly change channels when it’s obvious I’m watching a programme stems from a desire to assert his control over me and an innate selfishness.

However, when I mentioned this to my sister, she said her husband’s the same so it appears that this is just another of the pitfalls of marriage, like having an overbearing mother-in-law, and is to be borne with stoicism.

Though sometimes it’s too hot to be stoic. Like when you’ve been obsessing about American Idol for all over three months and your husband for the final round of singing decides he wants to watch some worthless comedy (on BBC Entertainment which reruns everything at least a 100 times) and so insists on not changing the channel for the first ten minutes of AI. Now, ten minutes is not a big but it’s a big deal when: a) you’ve been obsessing about this show and this is the culmination and so you want to watch every minute b) the comedy isn’t a favourite of his or even something he can’t watch again so what gives?

Control-freakiness, that’s all. So I stomped off into the bedroom and refused to watch the show. I re-read Bridget Jones’s Diary instead which was tres entertaining. That book is so re-readable and always a good time. Why can’t Helen Fielding write more?

I was determined not to watch the finale either and so the first thing I did yesterday morning was check the results (Kris won, yay!). Normally, I studiously avoid any websites that would break the results before I’d watched the show in the evening.

Anyway, Pri was online and started telling me about the show and it sounded so awesome that I began dying to watch it. I even read all the gossipy websites she forwarded me and so I pretty much knew everything that happened and so decided it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t watch it.

When I went home, I didn’t say a word about the show… but V switched it on. Ten minutes into it, I decided to sulk anyway – though it looked awesome – and stamped off inside. Only to emerge ten minutes later, because I really really wanted to watch it much to V’s amusement. I warned him that any channel changing would send me off inside again, and thankfully, he didn’t.

Anyway, I’ve been rooting for Kris, because I belatedly realised (after Anoop was kicked off) that he’s super cute and can sing decently. I know Adam is probably more talented but that falsetto he kept doing started to annoy me after a point and I didn’t know if I wanted to listen to that for the rest of my life.

Except that Adam was sooo good at the finale. He lived up to Kiss, for god’s sake! He was Kiss, although they had makeup and he had… errr iron-wing-things. Kris on the other hand was somewhat outsung by Keith Urban, though he’s not a bad singer and with help from a studio can probably cut the kind of record I might listen to. Apart from Adam, the other stellar performance was Allison (Allyson?) and Cindy Lauper. Danny almost made me throw up with his Hello, but he kept up with Lionel Ritchie quite well. And they gave Megan and Michael a big solo (which sounded crap) and Anoop and Alexis two lines, which sounded awesome. Who is Jason Mraz?

Ok everyone has reviewed this show to death so I’m going to stop now. Except that my Adam-Kris dilemma finally got sorted and unfortunately not in favour of the one who won. Heh.

Part of my recent tendency to find most people annoying is an increasing impatience with the personas people adopt. For example, some people I know strictly adhere to a kurta-jhola-cigarette-kaajal-nosering-only literature reading variety.

If you’ve been to an English Lit classroom, you’ll know what I mean. English Lit students in India go through a brief head-to-toe-black-cigarette-smoking phase before settling irrevocably on the kurta-jhola look. Journos have been accused of this but in reality journos generally tend to the kurta (for practical reasons actually because you never know where an assignment is going to take you) and possibly cigarette part of the pose while otherwise being varied in appearance and interest. The abovementioned variety tend to stick with the pauvre-intellectual look even when they are anything but, while projecting a faint air of smug erudition at all times.

Then, I know people who are constantly striving to be the fun party type, as reflected in Facebook messages that detail how much they drank last night.

See, everyone probably goes through this as a teen. But if the “trying to” is so obvious even in your 30s, then it’s a bit sad, no? Sometimes the attempts actual become the personality, as in the case of aforementioned “intellectuals”, but it’s still exhausting to watch people conforming so hard to, ironically, non-conformity.

And then I began to introspect. Did I have a persona too? If so, what is it? How did I “appear” to people?

I asked Curly, who has known me for long enough to know, and her opinion is that I am the opposite of the yuppie-intellectual. “It’s kind of like I know I’m intelligent, I know I’m intellectual but I’m trying to be a normal person.”

So basically my persona is trying to hide the fact that I am intelligent behind a cloak of frivolity. Thinking about it, this fits in with ever-present inner rebel. I refuse to adopt the yuppie-intellectual mode because it’s become so common. It doesn’t shock anymore, it’s like a uniform.

It’s more fun for me to pretend to be a flake and then watch the surprise on people’s faces when I say something intelligent. The problem is, that I kind of expect people to know I’m not really a flake and if they get too patronising (which happens with men who cannot take women seriously), I get seriously annoyed. When it’s partly the fault of my persona in the first place.

Curly’s persona is also similar. And she pointed out that while growing up we may have been in the top percentile of the intelligence among our peers, as the circle widens, we probably find ourselves in the top 25 %. And in that case, does our persona even make sense?

My point is that it’s hard to tell who’s intelligent or not because so many people go around pretending to be through their air of erudition and general name-dropping and people like us, who are naturally modest, cede to them until something happens and you realise you’re probably smarter.

So the conclusion is that everybody “puts on” to some extent. Becoming an adult is partly about fixing who you want to be.

But for some people, the glue that goes into that process shows too much. A personality should be seamless, not the hem coming undone at the edges so that you’re always left wondering if there’s something else there. Or maybe what gets me is the mediocrity of some personalities – if you’re going for intellectual, at least reinvent the wheel a little. Vary the kurta-jhola with a designer handbag or something… Or make sure that your quirks are at least authentic and not part of the generic “quirkiness” of the intellectual personality.

Ouff I should shut up now. Maybe I’ll be less judgemental now that I’ve ranted.

On the weekend I went to the Art Fair. The disadvantage of no longer working for a newspaper is that one no longer has access to free passes to practically every event and one is not in the habit of buying them. The advantage of having worked for a newspaper is that one still has friends who have access to free passes so generally, one manages to lay ones hands on some. So far.

So I went to Art Fair with friend and trying to be suitably intellectual we attended panel discussion on the future of museums. Some apparently famous people such as Charles Merewether and Ron Arad (who I shamefully had never heard of before) were part of it so we felt it might be good. Sadly it was a waste of time and rather unpleasant as Ron Arad decided to diss another panelist’s efforts and then a third panelist told him that ego was emanating from him to which he said “I apologise”. Hmmm, it sounds like fun now but I hated the atmosphere of tepid tension that prevailed.

Anyway, I’ve realised I need to go to these arty events on my own. This is the second year I’ve gone with someone and then the pressure to make some interesting comment – instead of just looking which is what I like to do with art – is annoying. Also, each person feels the need to stick with the other instead of progressing at their own pace. And sometimes just to be polite you stand staring at something terribly boring and ugly only to discover that the other person thought so too only both of you were being polite.

Note to singletons: If art is hard to do with friends, definitely avoid for dates. Movies are ok. No conversation needed, occasional brushing of arms provides possibilities for sexual tension and at the end, you have a topic of conversation which doesn’t require much intellectual stirrings. Quite easy to gabble on about why you hated Batman as opposed to making fool of yourself because you couldn’t grasp what any of the art meant.

Another funny thing that happened was that as I was circling around some sculpture, I noticed a bald man with a prominent nose doing the same and we kept surreptitiously glancing at each other – me to see if it was Alan Zeman (owner of all of LKF) and him, I presume, to see if I was looking at him and hence, a stalker. Later, it turned out that it was him. Surprising that tycoon types walk around art fairs with the likes of us minions.

Also noticed friend of a friend buying a piece of art. Actually, I overheard the salesgirl sounding like she was managing to sell something and I turned to see which person could afford it and it turned out to be friend of a friend. How doubly weird to actually know people who can afford stuff at this fair where the cheapest thing seems to be HK$200,000.

Of course if I didn’t have a husband to talk sense into me, I’d have probably owned: a) the Furla zebra print bag of my dreams (circa HK$4,000) and b) at least one proper work of art by now but probably not a house. Hmmm. Though she was with her husband. Double hmmm.

This year’s fair was easier for me to whiz through because I realised I know Korean art quite well. My work trip to Korea was like a crash course in modern Korean art and now it’s like I have no clue what’s going on with Indian art. People keep mentioning Jitish Kallat (who thankfully I had heard of) and Subodh Gupta (who I hadn’t – but whose tiffin box things I’m not sure I like) so finally I saw some of their work. I also realised I’m beginning to like paintings which are detailed and have fine lines when earlier I was only attracted to bold lines. Which means I like a lot of the Pakistani art I saw, which seems to be a modern take on the miniaturists.

Hmmm what does that say about moi? Nothing, I presume, other than that I have a lot of time on my hands right now.

Did you notice my sneaky little one-liner at the end of yesterday’s post saying that we are now homeowners (translation: we just bought a house) or were you too shell-shocked by my cavalier attitude to baby-making?

So, yeppers, yours truly is now a part-owner of a suitably tiny apartment on the top floor of the building next to ours, with a patch of roof above so that we can pretend that we are the kind of people who like to have friends over for a BBQ.

With regards to the latter, we – or at least, I – are/am not. I am too lazy to have people over if it requires anything more than the least effort and sweating over coals that refuse to ignite and pre-marinated meat that takes ages to cook does not fit my criteria of hassle-free entertaining. But who knows, now that the previous owner is leaving the BBQ set, we may feel compelled to use it.

In case you didn’t get it the first time, I – erstwhile earner of Rs 5,000 a month if that and frequent possessor of a bank balance of Rs 10 while nevertheless managing to go to the pub every weekend and even buy people poorer than her drinks – is the owner of a some million (HK) dollars home in an uber expensive foreign city. How weird.

Anyway, finding the perfect home is not as much of an emotional rollercoaster as finding the perfect couch or TV stand. V and I are surprisingly in agreement about what we want.

His requirements:a) Balconyb) Spacec) Nice viewd) Close to MTRe) Shortish building (so he can feel like he’s in Bangalore, I presume, because I don’t really know what the virtues of stumpy buildings are except that they may not possess a lift and you will lose weight walking up).

Ok, it doesn’t sound like we are in agreement at all… but actually when we saw flats, we both pretty much liked the same ones. So there were no screaming fights this time.

The only problem was the HK property market which is … craaaazy. Last year, we were lucky that V had to leave for India on work so that we were saved from buying an apartment at what turned out to be the peak of a market gone mad before everything came crashing down with the financial crisis.

Now, while there’s supposedly a recession on, the property market in Hong Kong is on the upswing again. Interest rates are down and people are still skittish about the stockmarket so they must have something to bet on.

We would have started househunting sooner but V had had surgery on his leg and wasn’t up to it. However, we didn’t think we’d be in any danger of being caught in a property boom.

The actual househunting, however, brought us down to earth. V and I have always been slightly in love with the Western end of HK island that we lived in when we first came here. V had a small two-bedroom (think one tiny bedroom and a closet) in an old building with the most awesome sea view ever.

However, he wanted to move to a bigger place and unfortunately, we couldn’t find anything else in the area that suited us. Kennedy Town then was an oldish Chinese locality where few people spoke English. Apartments tend to be small while those who have converted two small apartments into one big one rarely sell.

The exception are two new buildings targeting expats, which offer miniscule apartments at massive rates. We have always dreamt of living in the cheaper of these buildings, mainly because of the seaview. Today, the area is quickly becoming very hip. Which is good for future appreciation, though I quite like the authentic Chinese community feel.

With the recession on, we thought we might be able to afford it. Alas, owners are holding out for another boom, asking for huge sums. We were at a stage when we were making offers on apartments in the building without even seeing them.

So, we began to look at other areas and ended up finding Ze One in the building right next to ours, which had been renovated quite nicely. Although V kept saying we should buy a flat and do it up ourselves, I, for one, find it hard to see the possibilities in dreary and filthy spaces even if I know that all they need is the fresh coat of paint. I need at least the fresh coat of paint to be able to see what I can do with the space. That’s why interior decorators have jobs… and that’s why I’m not one.

Basically, we made offers on some three houses and this was the first one that came through on our price, by which time we had convinced ourselves that we really wanted it. Then V’s friend at work told him that he should insist on a meeting with the landlord face-to-face to negotiate.

It was very bizarre. We went to the house (because I wanted to see it again) and then we tried to engage the owner in a discussion about price. At which point, he told the agent in Cantonese that we should wait in their office because he couldn’t say no to us in person.

So basically we head down to the agent’s office while one agent stays with the owner to relay his comments to us over the phone. He says no to our offer and we then discuss and make a counter offer. Then we wait for nearly an hour while the owner convinces his wife to sell (or so they tell us).

Finally, at 9 pm we head home. At 10 pm, the agent calls us and says he’s going to bring a contract over and we should sign it and then he’ll go over to the landlord and present him with an almost fait-accompli which will hopefully convince him to sign. At nearly 11 pm, the agent comes home with the contract. Then we realise we need to see some document. Agent departs to his office to print out document. We sign at nearly 12 am. One minute later and we’d be pumpkins.

Agent departs to landlords house. His parting (but double-edged) words are: “We must close this tonight because that’s when the owner will be weak. Tommorow he will change his mind.” Which could very well apply to us too but we’ve already signed.

At 1 am, he calls to say owner has signed. At 1.15 am he comes over with signed documentations. In the wee hours, we have become the owners of a house.

A revolutionary change has taken place that only my obsessive concern about my weight could have wrought. I have decided that I want to be pregnant.

Nope, maternal stirrings are not happening yet. If presented with a golden retriever and a baby, I will choose the former. Babies, in pictures or actual, are still met with indifference unless they are Chinese in which case their sticky-outy hair provides endless fascination. (I don’t know why I don’t just adopt a Chinese baby and be done with it.)

However, the recent rotund-ness of my tummy and my lack of will to stop eating pastries for dessert (this is what happens when your mom restricts your chocolate intake as a child on the dubious grounds that it is causing your tonsils to swell) have resulted in me concluding that pregnancy would be a tres convenient solution.

By being pregnant I would be instantly transformed from girl-with-skinny-arms-and-protuding-belly to girl-with-a-glow. How cool is that?

No longer would people in my office ask when I was planning to have a baby while staring at my stomach (which I only just realised was them not being typical Asian women but rather them being typical women genuinely curious about whether the cause of my bump was a bundle of joy or well, just a bundle).

Not only has my belly grown exponentially but also I have begun to feel tired and breathless. So over the past two weeks, I began to harbour secret visions of being pregnant and never having to bother with the gym again for nine months at least. Or I could magnanimously go to the gym every now and then and people would be very impressed, regardless of whether I lost any weight or not.

V pointed out that after pregnancy I would still have a belly to deal with to which I replied that having a child is as good an excuse as any. All love handles are excused on the basis of child-bearing (except in HK, but even Chinese women do not expect Indian women to be thin after childbirth… only overly-optimistic Indian men like my husband).

Unfortunately, today put paid to any such fantasies because it appears from monthly cramping that I am apparently not “with child”. Rather I am just in-urgent-need-of-the-ab-isolator (as advertised by that irritating telemarkerting man) and my other symptoms are probably a result of sudden heatwave or worse, aforementioned ab-isolator-requiredness.

Oh well, at least I am now a homeowner.

PS: I know that one day my child will read this and suffer from debilitating lack of self-esteem due to being wanted only as a cosmetic cover up but hopefully I will be such an awesome mother when the time comes that this will be cancelled out.For anyone wondering how this sea-change is going to happen, I am holding onto the avowals of many equally disinterested (in babies and like) women who nevertheless love their own children. In fact, V forsees me being one of those overly clingy, obsessive mothers which may well come to pass.

PSS: Characteristics of ideal baby, should one happen:a) Girlb) V’s nosec) My earsd) General good health.I am willing to compromise on a boy but b), c) and d) are non-negotiable.

Was chatting with a friend the other day about how I’ve become more tolerant for friends who upset me. In the past, I pretty much had a three strikes rule: hurt me thrice (if I even let you get to that stage) and I shut down.

But lately, I’ve been noticing that I’m more ready to tolerate people’s hurtfulness keeping in mind their long friendship. And if I decide to shut down a friendship, I do so with the recognition that it might resurface.

My friend pointed out that she’s become less tolerant of misbehaviour in friendships. Before if friends messed up, she’d let it slide a lot. Now not so much.

I realised that while I’m more tolerant of friends and their foibles, I get annoyed more easily. Before I could just smirk and smug at people being annoying. Now it really bugs me.

On the other hand, I’m more likely to let people’s stupid opinions at parties slide.

Which brings me to another thing that I’ve been thinking about which someone else posted about (but I can’t remember who… if you’re a reader of this blog, please stand up and I’ll link you): if at a party someone is proclaiming an opinion that is not just completely contrary to what you think but also of the hate-spreading variety (such as: maybe it’s good if Pota is applied to “screen” Muslims; gay people are unnatural and evil), do you intervene and contradict them. Or if you’re pretty sure they’re too bigoted to change their minds and might get nasty, do you just stay silent?

I used to jump in and argue but the more grown up me seems to be taking the pacifist route. I’m not sure of the morality of staying silent on these things though.